“The Story Was Not Printed”: The Press Covers the 1930s Banking Crisis

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe numerous bank failures that were a defining feature of the Great Depression received minimal news coverage. During the early 1930s, the news media consistently downplayed the problems that pervaded the nation’s banks and rebuked small depositors for their lack of confidence. While studies reveal that bank management bore significant responsibility for the era’s bank failures, contemporary newspaper reports routinely blamed suspensions on depositors seeking to salvage their savings, and even alleged that communist subversion lay behind the banking crisis. The news media’s focus on small depositors and communists directed public attention away from problems with the banks themselves. The era’s press projected the ideological outlook of powerful financial and business interests that thought depressions were inevitable and substantial economic reforms inadvisable. Bank failures continued until 1933, when the entire system finally collapsed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was established. If the press had addressed the financial situation more forthrightly, banking reforms might have been implemented earlier.